


Love will steer the stars

by WorkInProgress84



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hippies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:28:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24696841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorkInProgress84/pseuds/WorkInProgress84
Summary: Arthur's car breaking down in the middle of Nowhere, Rural America, might have been a blessing after all. Especially when he meets some of the locals. Well, one of them anyway.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 89





	Love will steer the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from Aquarius.

“So you’re- what? A hippy?” Arthur asked with a raised eyebrow he’d been told could be very condescending.

Merlin just laughed, though, unimpressed. His blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight and his smile grew dimples. Very nice ones, too; Arthur’s throat went dry.

“If that’s what you want to call it then yeah, sure, I’m a hippy,” he agreed readily.

He looked the part anyway, with the longish dark hair and the many necklaces that dangled from the long column of his neck. The light blue linen shirt he was wearing perfected the look as much as it teased Arthur with the way it dipped tantalizingly low and exposed Merlin’s delicate collarbones.

Merlin obviously belonged here, Arthur mused as he took in the field they were idling in. Wildflowers swayed in the gentle breeze, colorful petals curving towards Merlin’s sprawled form. As if nature itself was trying to get closer to him.

Arthur, though? He sat in the grass in his corduroy suit, back stiff, his briefcase a shield between him and Merlin. He felt ridiculous, out of place.

He spared a thought for the meeting he was currently missing in Saint Louis, and for his broken-down car on the other side of the forest. He wondered if his father had sent someone looking for him. That was where Arthur belonged: in board meetings and stuffy offices, played like a puppet by his boss of a father, not in prairies making daisy chains and singing carefree songs.

That was how he'd found Merlin's ecovillage (a hippy community, if Arthur was honest): he’d followed the music and stumbled into the clearing, interrupting a jamming session of some kind. He’d blinked at the arresting sight: a dozen people playing music and dancing because apparently it was an integral part of their day.

Then his eyes had found Merlin.

Merlin was… an apparition.

The elegant line of his body as he moved to the music, the secret smile on his face, the delicate slant of his jaw, everything seemed to pull Arthur in with gravitational strength. The smile had stretched wider on his soft pink lips when he’d noticed Arthur, who had taken an unconscious step forward, forgetting everything about the future of Pendagron Industries.

Merlin was a temptation and Arthur was enthralled.

The young man had taken him (barefoot) to the main building the community used for meetings because that’s where the only phone was. Arthur had spent the entire time babbling about his job to try and cover up how flustered Merlin made him - the first handshake had rendered him speechless. Merlin had just hummed in all the right places, unbothered.

“The mechanic won’t be here before late afternoon,” Arthur had bemoaned with a look at the expensive watch on his wrist. It was ten in the morning and the mechanic had been evasive enough for Arthur to assume he wouldn’t be here before nightfall, if he came at all. “Will he even know how to find us?”

“Yeah, we always call him when we have a problem with our car. He might even take a look at yours before he gets here if it’s right outside the woods.”

“Okay, good,” he’d said as he thumbed through the phonebook he’d used, unseeing. “So, what now?”

That was how Arthur had found himself strolling through tall grass fields, exploring the community, each step taking him further away from the edge of the nervous breakdown he’d been flirting with lately. Then they had - well, Merlin had, anyway - decided to stop and lay down in the grass to look at the clouds, of all things. 

“Is it always like this here?” Arthur asked, baffled and restless.

“Like what?” Merlin chuckled as he chewed on a mint leaf he'd plucked on the way, but his tone suggested he knew exactly what Arthur meant.

“Everyone’s so… nice, it borders on recklessness, really.”

Merlin laughed some more, the great sound reverberating in Arthur’s chest. “Aren’t you glad we didn’t chase you away with pitchforks, though?”

“No, no, I am! But- It’s just not how the real world works,” he replied lamely.

“To me this is the real world. It’s the one I chose, anyway.”

“You’re a strange one, Merlin.” He got a blinding smile in response. It sent his heart racing.

Strange, intriguing, captivating… Arthur couldn’t quite explain the pull. He itched to uncover all of Merlin’s secrets. He knew exactly how he'd go about it, too: pick his brain, card his fingers through his thick dark hair, trace the shell of his ears with his mouth, let his hands run down his willowy form until he found- 

“You should take your shoes off.”

“What? Why?” Arthur frowned, surprised and yet not. He coloured slightly, the all-too-familiar shame rearing its head at his less than pure thoughts for this man. It wasn’t the first time; somehow it felt different.

“You’ll see life differently with your shoes off…” He rolled his eyes but, for the sake of new experiences and because in the moment it made absolute sense, he obeyed. “Your socks, too, genius.”

“Hey!” he cried. “Aren’t you supposed to be peaceful and loving?”

Merlin harrumphed. “I suppose you bring out the worst in me. But that’s good; I like a challenge,” he said, his gaze meeting Arthur’s head on. Arthur’s skin erupted in goosebumps. “How are you liking it, then?”

“It’s… disconcerting.”

Arthur looked at his toes like he was seeing them for the first time. They peeked out of his bell-bottoms as he wiggled them in the grass; he couldn’t remember ever doing this. Raised on tough love and austerity, there hadn’t been many picnics in his childhood. He was amazed how… free he felt just for feeling the earth beneath his feet, tiny blades of grass tickling his skin.

Arthur clung to the feeling desperately, knowing it would be ripped from him in a few short hours. Then he would never see Merlin again. The certainty tore a hole in his chest, like he was being robbed from the potential to be- what? Happy? Free? At peace?

Through his inner turmoil, Merlin kept on looking at him like he was waiting Arthur out.

Could it be that easy, though? Just one conscious decision and he could have his life back, far from the Pendagron legacy that weighed him down? He couldn’t imagine anyone - least of all his father - being okay with this. Arthur was all too aware that the real world still lurked out there, gnawing away at the bubble of quiet he’d stumbled into. 

“Are you alright?”

Merlin’s lilting voice startled Arthur out of his intrusive thoughts. He’d been glaring ahead like the trees had personally offended him.

He cleared his throat, embarrassed he'd been caught. “Yeah, I… Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” Merlin insisted earnestly, rolling on his side to face Arthur, white teeth worrying at a corner of the mint leaf. “You don’t look alright.”

“What, are you a psychic, now? The community’s shaman maybe?” he retorted, biting. 

Merlin only chuckled; the weight on Arthur’s chest inexplicably grew lighter for it. “No, but your face wasn't as gorgeous with such a deep frown.” Arthur swore the compliment made his entire body hum with pleasure. “I’m actually the go-to guy for growing stuff: plants, vegetables, flowers, you name it,” he continued when Arthur remained silent. “I guess you could say I have a knack for it.”

Arthur glanced at Merlin sideways, trying for subtlety; he fell into intense blue eyes right away. He stared: how could someone who lived mostly outside have such pale skin? Merlin seemed to glow in the sunlight. How could such an unassuming young man captivate Arthur so? 

“But-” Arthur started again for the sake of breaking the tense, heavy silence, only to interrupt himself when he realised he had nothing to say. “What happens when you’re old and you can’t tend to your garden anymore?”

Merlin shrugged, a small grin tugging at a corner of his tantalizing mouth. “I don’t know, we’ll see.”

Arthur snorted out a disbelieving laugh. “That kind of attitude goes against everything I’ve ever been taught.”

“Yeah? How would you like to try it?”

Arthur forced himself to level an unimpressed look at Merlin. He couldn't afford to entertain the thought. "What? And end up starving by the time I'm 70 and unable to dig up potatoes?" He scoffed. "I don’t think so."

“That’s because you’re assuming you’ll be alone doing it. You don’t have to be alone,” Merlin said, his eyes boring deep into Arthur’s, reaching for his very soul.

Arthur’s heart stuttered in his chest. His head spun. He stared as Merlin gazed at him, expectant, an impossibly fond look on his face.

"Are you offering to shack up with me?" he asked, aiming for funny and missing it by miles.

"Mmh," Merlin nodded. 

“Merlin…” he sighed, at a loss.

His voice broke, filled with longing. Longing for Merlin, longing for this life that could potentially be his, no matter how absurd it sounded to Arthur's brain. Merlin was beautiful, so beautiful it almost hurt; he represented everything Arthur couldn't have and couldn't be.

"Would you consider it?" 

"You're being serious? Merlin, I can't, I have a life-"

"Take a sabbatical. Give me a year."

"You're saying this like it's easy. My father will sack me. Disown me, even."

"And then you'll be free to live your life. Find a new job, if you don't want to stay with me. You're qualified enough, or so I gathered from your rambling earlier."

"Merlin…" Arthur's pulse was racing so fast, maybe he was having that heart attack after all. He was sweating and his breath was coming in short as he looked into Merlin's shrewd eyes.

Merlin threw the mint leaf to the side and sat up in a cacophony of clinking beads, so close Arthur could see the tiny shadows his lashes cast on his cheeks The way he stared at him was so serious it was eerie.

"You feel this, too, don't you? That you belong here?" His eyes softened. "With me, maybe."

So many rebukes and dismissals tried to crawl up Arthur's throat; none came out. His breath was caught in his chest, looping around his lungs, stifling him until-

"Yes."

That wasn't what he'd meant to say. That wasn't the prudent thing to say.

A radiant smile lit Merlin's face and made Arthur feel like perhaps it was the right answer anyway. Then Merlin closed the distance between them and Arthur became sure. 

Merlin tasted like mint, sharp and fresh; Arthur's lips tingled. He sank into the grass willingly when Merlin pushed him down, straddling him, surprisingly solid for such a wisp of a man.

Merlin kissed like it was the one thing he took seriously in life, with an earnestness none of Arthur's shameful brush-ups in dark nightclubs had prepared him for. There was nothing shameful here, nothing wrong in the way Merlin's thumb stroked his cheek as his tongue delved into Arthur's mouth, swirling again and again.

Somehow the breeze around them, the sound of chirping birds and the grass between Arthur's toes made the experience more intense, like the both of them were part of a whole. Like Arthur was a stray puzzle piece that had finally found its place, between the earth and Merlin.

Oh God, he was already becoming a hippy; Arthur would have snorted if Merlin hadn't chosen that moment to slowly grind his hips down. Instead of snorting, he moaned into Merlin's mouth and closed his arms around him.

The next time Merlin seductively rolled his hips into his, Arthur rolled them over, breaking their kiss. Merlin laughed, an aura of daisies and clovers surrounding the dark nest of his hair. He looked like some kind of forest nymph. Arthur bent down again to taste his lips.

"Dammit," he groaned.

"What?" Merlin grinned.

"I'm never tasting mint without getting hard ever again."

Merlin's clear laughter was like the sun peeking out after a storm. Arthur wanted to hear it for the rest of their lives, and how mad was that.

Merlin bucked his hips against his and brought him back to the moment. "Did you have something in mind, then?" 

Arthur dove back down to minty freshness as his hand stroked downward, only stopping when he got to Merlin's half-hard shaft. He nuzzled his way down a chest that felt stronger than he'd expected considering Merlin's willowy form, enjoying the exploration of his delicate collarbones once he'd pushed away all the damn beads that hid them. Merlin laughed some more as he let Arthur rid him of his pants, probably at the indignity of the position, or maybe at the way the grass tickled his butt.

His laugh trailed into an unrestrained moan the second Arthur took him in his mouth, a hand sinking into his hair as he arched into the sensation. Once Merlin was completely hard, Arthur had to steady his hips so he wouldn't choke him with the way he tried to undulate into the warmth of his mouth.

The salty, musky taste of him was intoxicating, as were the litany of whimpered encouragements that streamed out of Merlin, much filthier than what Arthur had anticipated. Instead of making him feel cheap, it somehow made him feel… cherished, and special, which was incomprehensible.

"Arthur, _yes_. God, your mouth. Ungh, I don't know how much longer I'm going to last, you're so _warm_. And that _tongue_ , oh God, I want to feel it everywhere. You're a marvel, aren't you? Out of this world. You suck me so good, please don't stop."

Arthur had no intention of doing anything of the sort, the praise sending tingles down his spine as he tried to take Merlin in deeper, hollowing his cheeks to increase the pressure. Arthur had to let go of the bit of Merlin's cock he was stroking to restrain his jiggling legs as he approached completion, until Merlin seemed to realise he'd lost some of the stimulation and curled a hand around his jaw to stop him.

"Are you hard?" he panted.

"What do you think?" Arthur asked with a raised eyebrow, voice rough from the abuse his throat had just taken. "You're _pornographic_."

Merlin laughed deliriously. "Okay. I want to finish with you," he said, pushing up to his elbows then dislodging Arthur, gently pushing him back so they could kneel front to front.

Merlin wasted no time and assaulted Arthur like his lips held the key to eternal life, his kiss forceful even as he tugged and teared at Arthur's suit jacket.

"Lose this, now," he said in between kisses, "I want to touch you."

Arthur couldn't help but grin at Merlin's crazed enthusiasm. It did feel amazing to be desired like this. He fully returned that desire, too, and he made sure Merlin knew it, cradling his head to bring their mouths closer. He let Merlin take the reins for everything else, letting himself be disrobed of his jacket before Merlin attacked his shirt buttons. 

The slighter man stopped when Arthur's chest was revealed, his hands stroking it reverently. He felt like all the Fabios on the covers of the trashy romance novels Morgana thought he didn't know she read, with his shirt half off, sleeves trapped around his elbows. "Fuck. You're beautiful."

Arthur was pretty proud of the effect he had on Merlin. And touched. Since when had he become a freaking girl? Still, he pressed a grateful kiss to Merlin's mouth anyway, and let his own hands wander under his linen shirt, getting at clammy skin. Arthur's caresses seemed to re-ignite the fire in Merlin: he suddenly went for Arthur's pants, doing away with the fly in record time and pulling him out of his briefs.

Arthur hid in Merlin's neck to muffle the strangled sound he made the first time Merlin touched his hard-on, biting the tendons there and making Merlin buck into him. He drowned the one he made when their cocks met in Merlin's mouth.

From then on, it was a race to the finish line. They kissed feverishly when their furious thrusting allowed them to connect, hands grabbing and pulling and soothing, until Merlin took them both in a tight fist and started jerking them off. The sun was baking-hot on Arthur's shoulders but he couldn't bring himself to care about the mighty sunburn he'd be sporting later; not when Merlin's fierce grip was bringing him ever higher.

He came first, tipping into his climax from dizzying heights, a neverending freefall. He felt it in his spine. His come flowed along his and Merlin's cocks, slicking the way for Merlin's own orgasm, a handful of strokes later. Merlin moaned as he released all over both of them, a long sound that carried across the field around them and made Arthur want to do this all over again.

Merlin grabbed the front of his shirt to pull him back down, sagging into the grass once more, chests heaving, still high on pleasure.

"Do you still want me to stay, now that you got that out of your system?" Arthur asked, breathless.

"'That'? What's 'that' supposed to be? You?" Merlin smiled, threading their fingers together with his clean hand. "Then no, you're definitely not out of my system."

Then he leaned over and smiled, right in Arthur's face. And maybe it was the glare of the sun, but Arthur could've sworn that for a second before he kissed him, Merlin's eyes glowed gold.

**Author's Note:**

> DAY 19 - Outdoors


End file.
